Health Care? Promises, Promises!

I haven’t done a health care post in a while. Since both the mcPain and nobama campaigns have been long on promises and short specifics, I think now would be a good time. DAGNABIT! This from the new york times:

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Health Plan From Obama Spurs Debate

It is one of the most audacious promises in a campaign that has been thick with them.

In speech after speech, Senator Barack Obama has vowed that he will lower the country’s health care costs enough to “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.” Moreover, Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has promised that his health plan will be in place “by the end of my first term as president of the United States.”

Whether Mr. Obama can deliver is a matter of considerable dispute among health analysts and economists. While there is consensus that the American health care system is bloated with waste, eliminating enough to save $2,500 per family would require simultaneous and synergistic solutions to a host of problems that have proved intractable for decades.

Even if the next president and Congress can muster the political will, analysts question whether significant savings would materialize in as little as four years, or even in 10. But as Mr. Obama confronts an electorate that is deeply unsettled by escalating health costs, he is offering a precise “chicken in every pot” guarantee based on numbers that are largely unknowable. Furthermore, it is not completely clear what he is promising.

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SONOFABUSH! Let me make it clear what nobama is promising. LEMON SOCIALISM! He is promising to throw EVEN MORE OF OUR TAX DOLLARS DOWN THE RAT HOLE THAT IS THE FAILING PRIVATE INSURANCE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! corpoRATe welfare! We get much the same from mcPain! They don’t seem to understand that the thieving private insurance corpoRATeers are THE PROBLEM! Here’s more from the new york times:

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While the U.S. Spends Heavily on Health Care, a Study Faults the Quality

By Reed AbelsonNew York TimesJuly 17, 2008

American medical care may be the most expensive in the world, but that does not mean it is worth every penny. A study to be released Thursday highlights the stark contrast between what the United States spends on its health system and the quality of care it delivers, especially when compared with many other industrialized nations.

The report, the second national scorecard from this influential health policy research group, shows that the United States spends more than twice as much on each person for health care as most other industrialized countries. But it has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care, according to the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York.

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We ALREADY SPEND FAR TOO MUCH ON HEALTH CARE, BUT WE GET FAR TOO LITTLE IN RETURN! How can it be that we spend more and get less?

Top 10 Reasons For Enacting a

Single Payer Healthcare System

1. Everybody in, nobody out. Universal means access to healthcare for everyone, period —the desire of 81% of all Californians, as reported in a January, 2007 Field Poll.

2. Portability. Even if you are unemployed, or lose or change your job, your health coverage goes with you.

3. Uniform benefits. No Cadillac plans for the wealthy and Moped plans for everyone else, with high deductibles, limited services, caps on payments for care, and no protection in the event of a catastrophe. One level of comprehensive care no matter what size your wallet.

4. Prevention. By removing financial roadblocks, a single payer system encourages preventive care that lowers an individual’s ultimate cost and pain and suffering when problems are neglected, and societal cost in the over utilization of emergency rooms or the spread of communicable diseases.

5. Choice of physician. Most private plans restrict what doctors, other caregivers, or hospital you can use. Under a single payer system, patients have a choice, and the provider is assured a fair reimbursement.

6. Ending insurance industry interference with care. Caregivers and patients regain the autonomy to make decisions on what’s best for a patient’s health, not what’s dictated by the billing department or the bean counters. No denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions or cancellation of policies for “unreported” minor health problems.

7. Reducing administrative waste. One third of every health care dollar in California goes for paperwork, such as denying care, and profits, compared to about 3% under Medicare, a single-payer, universal system.

8. Cost savings. A single payer system would produce the savings needed to cover everyone, largely by using existing resources without the waste. Taiwan, shifting from a U.S. healthcare model, adopted a single-payer system in 1995, boosting health coverage from 57% to 97% with little if any increase in overall healthcare spending.

9. Common sense budgeting. The public system sets fair reimbursements applied equally to all providers while assuring all comprehensive and appropriate health care is delivered, and uses its clout to negotiate volume discounts for prescription drugs and medical equipment.

10. Public oversight. The public sets the policies and administers the system, not high priced CEOs meeting in secret and making decisions based on what inflates their compensation packages or stock wealth or company profits.

Our Mission: Single-Payer National Health Insurance

The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.

This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

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What’s wrong with our health care system? The Nurses and Doctors know! It’s the WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE OF THE PRIVATE INSURANCE corpoRATeers WHO ROB US OF OVER 30% OF OUR HEALTH CARE MONEY! We can save enough money TO INSURE EVERYONE BY CUTTING THE THIEVING corpoRATeers OUT! Who else know what’s wrong with our failure of a health care system?

NADER KNOWS!

What can YOU do to fix the failing health care system?

SUPPORT AND VOTE FOR THE ONLY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WHO WILL GIVE US SINGLE PAYER NATIONAL HEALTH CARE! IT’S JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED!

America In Distress!

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